


The Closeness of Insanity

by TimeTravelingDetective221



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU fanfiction, Alternate Universe, Angst, BBC, Feels, M/M, Psychiatric Ward AU, Sherlock AU, asylum AU, sherlock bbc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:12:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1444705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeTravelingDetective221/pseuds/TimeTravelingDetective221
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Sherlock Holmes is a patient in a psychiatric ward and John Watson is his doctor.  (Written from John's perspective.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Closeness of Insanity

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and any similarities to people or situations is purely coincidental. These charters are not mine, I'm just borrowing them for a while.

* * *

 

    I would like to say that the time I spent with Sherlock Holmes went by too fast, but God knows there where days with that man that I couldn’t wait to get over with. Days that I just wanted to be away from him because he drove me mad half of the time. Of course, now that I look back, I wish I wouldn’t have been so selfish with my time. I wish I could have done more with him. Seen more. I wish I would have been more tolerant with him at times, because I know it was just his way of testing me. I wish I would have cared more for him, looked after him better. I wish I would have been more to him than I was.

    But I wasn’t.    

And wishing doesn’t you very far. Most certainly not here. Definitely not now. Miracles don’t exist. Coincidences don’t happen because the universe could never be so lazy.

        We could have done so much together, because -even if no one else knew- I knew he was getting better. I knew his condition was improving. And frankly, it kills me inside to know this because now…. now no one else will see his brilliance. Not like I did. Not ever.    

 

* * *

 

    I heard the shouting even before I entered the room.    

   “I don’t care that he was incapacitated! I said that Dr. Stanford is the only one to examine my heath and that is final!” The man yelled at the nurse.  

   “I know that’s what you said, Mr. Holmes, but we’re especially short on staff, and -and we really just don’t have any other choice. Dr. Watson is a nice man-.”  

  “I. Don’t. Care. About. Nice.” I heard the man snap back, cutting off her tired insistence.

    I walked faster towards the doorway so the poor nurse didn’t have to put up with him any longer than need be. When I turned the handle, the she spun around  to look at me, but the patient didn’t even take a glance my way. When I was inside, the nurse took a step towards me, a frown on her thin lips. She handed me a clipboard and left without meeting anyone’s gaze, heels clicking on the hard floor. The metal door closed with a small click.

    My eyes looked down at the chart in my hands, then over to the patient who sat at the end of his bed. His back pin-straight, palms of his hands resting on his knees, head looking forward at the blank wall. He still wasn’t looking at me.     “So you’re William Holmes?” I asked, reading off the name from the chart.

    He scoffed in pure disgust. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he had rolled his eyes at me. He turned his head to look at me, eyes squinted,”That’s not the name I go by. That’s not my name. If you would have talked to the previous doctor, you would have known that. Obviously, you didn’t. . . “

    “I don’t even know your name, then.” I said, shifting my weight.

    “The name is Sherlock Holmes.” He retorted.

    “Oh.” I replied crossing out ‘William’ and writing in the margin ‘Sherlock’ with a nod,”Right. Okay then.”

        “And before you ask; yes, that is what I am actually called. No it is not a name of my delusion or make-believe, it is -in fact- my name. My whole name. Part of it, really. William Sherlock Scott Holmes is the whole of it. I prefer Sherlock. And I always have.” He added quickly. He talked like verbalizing with you should make you feel honored, and I’m sure a lot of people did when they talked to him, but to me he just sounded cantankerous.

    “What made you think I was going to ask that? If you like to be called Sherlock, I’ll call you Sherlock. No questions asked. “ I replied instinctively.

    There was a pause, in which he watched me for the whole time, then he answered with,”She was right about you. You are nice… _Don’t be_.”

 

* * *

 

    Later, after I had checked in with Sherlock and some other, more routine, patients in the psychiatric ward, I was privileged with some time to grab some lunch in the cafeteria.

    With my plastic tray in. hand, I found a table that had only one person sitting alone. It, of course, happened to be Sherlock. I was hesitant to sit down, for the reason that my mere presence may annoy him too much to bare. _Maybe I shouldn’t_ , I thought to myself.

    “Oh, just sit down for God’s sake.” He uttered without turning.

    “Don’t you think that’s a little inappropriate?”

    “What are you referring to?” He snapped.

    “…A doctor and his patient having lunch together…”

    Sherlock took in a breath of air,“Just sit down, doctor. The only one in the room with a sane and cognitive presence here besides yourself is Mr.Thomson, the security guard. And judging by the puncture marks from Botox, recent weight loss, hair plugs, and condition of his wedding ring it is plain to see that his current state of mind is preoccupied on the fact that the phone he usually carries with him- the phone that has a waterproof casing around it so he may take the phone into the shower to insure text messages he would rather remain unread where unseen by his wife- is not present in his hand or his pocket so he is , obviously, very conceded if his spouse has found out about his sting of affairs with members of his wife’s book club or if she remains ignorant of this fact. His mind is somewhere else and he , of all people, has no place to determine what is considered appropriate or not.”

    I opened and closed my mouth to say something against his demand, but no protest came. So I sat down across from him. I was in awe of what he had just said. “That was…. incredible.”

   He made a shifty eye contact with me. “That’s now what people usually say.”

    “What do they usually say?” I asked.

    “‘Bugger off!’” He replied with a short laugh.

    I cleared my throat, a smile of impression still lingering on my lips.  I noticed that he had nothing in front of him. “Are you not going to eat anything?” I questioned, taking a bite of the Italian food that had been slopped on my plate.

    Sherlock shook his head. “No. Eating slows me down… And besides, the food here is rubbish. Don’t you think?”

    I swallowed. “Wether or not it’s rubbish doesn’t matter. An army pension doesn’t get you the best of things.” I admitted.

    “Afganistan or Iraq?” He inquired.

    “Afghanistan.” I confirmed.

    He nodded without another word.

    “But as your doctor,” I started,”I suggest you eat something.” Half of me was joking, the other half hoped that he would take my suggestion seriously.

    Sherlock continued to stair at me. “Please do stop trying to be humorous.” He sighed as he stood. He strode over to the area where the food was served and came back with a scarlet apple in hand.

        “Happy?” He asked. There wasn’t any humor in his intonation, only the dry, deep husk that was his voice. He seem ed genuinely irritated that he was eating something.

    “Yes,” I replied,” I am.” A thin smile spread my lips, not so much out of happiness like I had indicated, but out of a sort of complacent content that was quite unfamiliar to me. It pleased me, in bent way, that Sherlock had listened to me, I suppose. If only he had been so corporative all of the time… Then again, he wouldn’t have been himself if he had. If he had submissively given into every order that anyone said, he wouldn’t have had been Sherlock Holmes in the least. Certainty not the Sherlock Holmes I knew.

 

* * *

 

    Maybe just a few months or a bit later, I was sitting with Sherlock again at lunch, like I had every free lunch time since the first day, when I felt the need to bring up a question that had been dancing around my mind for some time. The question had, in fact, been on the tip of my tongue for so long that my mind had tried to come up with a number of possible answers ranging from absurd to exceedingly grim.

    “Why are you here, Sherlock?” I asked, out of the blue.

    “What?” He shot back.

    ‘Why are you here, in this place? With these people?" I responded.

    He watched me for a moment. Again with the staring. “Haven’t you seen my chart? You know why I’m here.”

    “ Yes. Of course I’ve seen the chart. But I wasn’t asking about the chart. If I wanted you to tell me what symptoms you have, I would have asked a nurse. I didn’t ask a nurse. I asked you.”

    There was a short pause, then he took sharp breath in, taking a glance away from me. I waited for him to explain, to lay it all out. But no words followed.  He didn’t even say he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t explain his situation to me, and out of all of the replies that I had envisioned him saying, not replying at all hadn’t even bothered to cross my mind. _Who knew silence could be so deafening?_

   

* * *

 

     Sherlock didn’t like people. (That much was obvious since the moment I met the man. ) He also was astonishingly uninvolved. Although, I think that these two things went hand in hand with each other -his lack of interest in ordinary people leading to his lack of interest in the ordinary activities they participated in. This made it exceedingly difficult for me to get to know him, to learn things about him.

    Of course I could see he was different around me, more tolerant, I suppose. Even with this knowledge, his distance from everything made things hard. It made it arduous to persuade him to do things like eat and sleep and take the medication that I prescribed him. “My body is merely transport,” He’d dispute flatly, “the only thing that matters is my mind.” He hated the medication because it slowed him down, mellowed him out. It ironed out all of the wrinkles in his mind -where the disease manifested it’s self and where it did not- and the wrinkles where the decease was not where what made him himself.

    So he never took the pills.

 

* * *

 

     One evening I went in late to the ward. It was at a time at which the staff had been reduced to it’s minimum and the hallways where dark with the shadows that stretched across the tile flooring in a way that you would never presume would happen so eerily if you where to appear in the same exact hallways in the day time. I assumed everyone was asleep, including the security guard I passed on the way in.

      I had, mindlessly, forgotten my mobile in the ‘Staff Only’ room that stood at the far side of the ward, only realizing so when I had made it half way home already. So, I had trekked all the way back to work in what had already been a long day and was agitated when I turned the handle of the door leading to the room I needed to gain entry only to find it was locked. An exasperated sigh escaped me as I doggedly let go of the metal handle of the door.  

      Upon deciding that returning home would be the only thing I could do about my temporally lost means of communication and connection to my online medical blog, I was greatly startled when someone spoke up behind me from the darkness.

    “You’re here exceptionally late, doctor. Forgot your mobile. Again?” A man asked in a low murmur.     “Jesus!” I exclaimed, turning around to look at the man. I exhaled with relief ,”Oh, Sherlock…It’s only you….What are you doing here?”

        “Mr. Thomson has taken double shifts, and with his wife’s divorce he doesn’t have the energy nor enthusiasm to rigorously observe the security tapes for every… single… second or, even, to check to see if his master keys are still on the hook upon his belt.” While Sherlock spoke relatively monotonously he mentioned the keys wile a devious smirk played on his lips and held the mentioned keys in the space between us. “Shhhhh,” He hushed, slipping Mr.Thomson’s keys into the pocket of his albino pants, “There are patients sleeping.”

    I gaped at him. “You stole his keys in order to break out of your room?! Sherlock! When they find out-.”

    “The world of the clinically insane is a world lived in anarchy, Dr.John Watson. No punishments will be imposed against me if someone happiness to find out.” He interrupted with a sigh.

    Although I originally had intentions of disputing a protest to his recent burglary, I instead -after reflecting on the comment-  considered it relatively plausible to a certain perspective. For the mad, everything you say and do can be anathematized on the decease you have be diagnosed and therefore will not be chastened for what you had voiced or conducted. I realized, he was right in a sense, because they had a credible justification. There was nothing anyone could foist upon people like Sherlock. Surely, you would try -and sometimes succeed- to negotiate or give incentives of a reward, but you would not be able to fully get your own way if they denied the idea -or this case, ignored the law- but equally, neither would they.

    In realizing this I also knew that almost any other person would try to reject or forsake this idea, to push it far away because, hey, they where certainly not influenced or structured by the somewhat deranged, right? But I knew from this lone -and askew- acceptance that I was the person to try to guide him. I had to accompany this man, to be his friend. Certainly not for the benefit of myself as you may have wrongly guessed, but for his.

    “I would like to show you something, Doctor Watson. “ Sherlock mumbled, deeply.

 

* * *

 

     Sherlock led me into the room that I knew he spent most of his time, solitarily. At first I was confused, not out of unfamiliarity because I had been in this rooms many of times to analyze the man’s condition, but I was confused because I did not know what there was to show.

    Sherlock reached under his the bed -the bed that he would sleep in if he wasn’t roaming the halls out of his room during sleeping hours- and retrieved from underneath the bed a rectangular box. He had hidden the package smushed between the mattress and the frame of the cot, forcing his box to bend in on itself at it’s center.  From where I stood, exactly where I did when we first met in this very room, I saw him set this unexceptional-looking container atop the thin ivory sheets that graphed the length of his bed.

    He then knelt in front of the case and opened it in front of me, spreading the contents out before him. (Something about his air of doing it vaguely reminded me of a classy businessman meticulously unpacking a portmanteau, even if most of the items from the box where not clothes at all.) I stepped closer to view his belongings. Inside there where a multitude of objects. Most of them where namely papers, but there was also: a magnifying glass, a enclosed petrie dish containing a single preserved bumblebee inside, two pictures, and a dark navy cloth that was nestled underneath all of these things.

    “Are these yours?” I asked Sherlock. In response, he modestly nodded as he let his eyes diverge from his well organized paraphernalia and momentarily settle on me.

    “Yes. Things of sentimentality from before I came here.” He said with another nod.

    “Sentimentality?” I challenged a bit harsher than I had meant.

    “Well,” said he with a tilt to his head,”As much sentiment as I am capable.”  

    Sherlock unfolded each paper individually and set it out, looking for something in particular and when he finally found whatever it was he had been searching for, he stood, glancing over at me and held it out for me to see.

    “What is it?” I asked, taking hold of the parchment.

      He didn’t answer me so the question just hung hollowly in the space between us. I looked down at what he had passed over to me and scanned over what it read.

    “I don’t understand, Sherlock. “ I said shaking my head, pushing the paper back at him.

    “It’s a letter from my brother, Mycroft. Although, I assume you have enough intelligence to figure that much out?” He retorted while he folded the letter back up, creasing the edges.

    I nodded in confirmation, slightly ticked off at his questioning something like that. I mean, of course I am. _I’m a doctor for Christ’s sake._

    “Well, John, then you undoubtedly noticed this is the letter that he had personally delivered to me. A letter plainly stating that I am of the mindset of someone pertaining to schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy.A useless note that informed me of the fact that he believes me to be not only a danger to myself in my lack of self control, but to others and also that my inability to manifest motivation, organize and plan for the future is irresponsible in the least. And, not to mention, that he thinks that conversations with me are difficult to carry out because of my delusions and that my attitude does nothing to improve my condition but contrariwise depress it.”

    I shifted, unconformably altering my weight. “I did pick up on that, yes. But I still don’t-.”

    “This thing is what forced me into this dreadful place! This damning slip of paper! God, John! Don’t you see what’s going on?! ” He roared, clenching his fists in an impetuous manner.

    I thought he might strike something.( _Maybe even me_.) So I blinked, recoiling a half step backwards and the movement seemed to have caused an upheaval to his normally callous expression, casting a chagrin sort of disconsolate paleness over his features. I immediately regretted the movement, despite how minute it may have seemed. But Sherlock had noticed it, and God knows Sherlock Holmes didn’t misconstrue his compulsory deductions -or that’s what I’m sure he presumed true. He must have thought I believed his brother to be right, in that moment. He must have been certain that he had confirmed what he thought I believed.

    I tried to say something to make it better, to take back what I had done, but my voice failed me. Sherlock turned his back to me and hastily cast his belongings back into the small box. His actions were disorderly and wayward, much like his mind.

      “There is nothing wrong with me.” I heard him say. I knew that he was trying to convince himself of this, and not me and in knowing that I felt my stomach drop. I realized then he really wasn’t as stable as he made himself out to be.     “Sherlock…” I started. He did not respond per usual to being in situations where the answer would be much more reassuring then the dead air. “Sherlock.” I tried again. He refused to acknowledge my words, but I kept talking. anyway, “ Sherlock, please listen to me. Not as your doctor, but as your friend…”

    He turned to me suddenly, as if repulsed by the idea. He stood over me and with all of his hight and intimidation and anger he spat forth, “I. DON’T. HAVE. _FRIENDS_.”

        This made my stomach drop again. Though, this time not only for pity for Sherlock, but ambivalently for pity for the both of us. At the same time as I pitied the man, I was also exceptionally maddened by him.

    “No,” I replied after a moment, “Wonder why?”

    As soon as I uttered those words his already bleak face dropped into a somber gloom. Of this, I did not care. I was already out of his room and back into the shadows of the psychiatric ward, angrily putting one foot in front of the other, ready to just go home.

 

* * *

 

  Merely two days later I had to check on Sherlock’s health. Of course I was still vexed with the man, but I planed to keep the visit one-hundred percent business: I’d run the examination and move on with the day, just as if he where any other patient in the ward. Even if he wasn’t just another patient.

    When I first got into the room I wasn’t greeted with an ‘I’m sorry’. Not like I expected Sherlock to apologize -I never expected him to ever do such a considerate thing- but I had thought (-more hoped-) that it would have been a nice change of mood. I had been too hopeful.

    Sherlock laid out on his bed, eyes closed, fingertips pressed together and hands resting just below his chin. This was a position that I found him in a lot of the time. (He once referred to it as being in his ‘Mind Palace’ and when he had finally explained to me what he meant by that, I hadn’t known if was part of his intellectual talent or unreliable mental faults.) Like a machine turning on, Sherlock’s bright eyes opened and he sat up with a quickness that I was sure would have given any other human being a head rush. He swung his legs around to one side and was now sitting at the end of the mattress, back pin straight, palms of his hands resting upon his knees. His posture was familiar and ostensive as though nothing had changed, but his eyes that looked down at the ground alluding that everything had. I hadn’t felt obligated as though it was necessary for me to beak the silence before or after I had made sure his heath was on point.

    “John.” He began, finally raising his gaze.

    “Yes, Sherlock?” I inquired, looking up from the chart I had been writing on.

    “Did you honestly not comprehend where I was going with showing you the letter from Mycroft?” He asked.

    I took in a sharp breath, “Sherlock if you’re just going to continue-.”

    “Just answer the question, Dr. Watson.” He ordered.

    “No, Sherlock. I didn’t get where you where going with any of it. “ I replied, starting to become irritated again.

    “Really?!” He snorted in disbelief.

    I was feb up with him and his preeminent attitude and angry with his right to be that way, even if he was in the situation he was in, so I decided that I was going to leave the room and so in an irritated huff, I did. What I didn’t expect though, was the possibility that Sherlock would decide to follow after.

    Sherlock sprung from his sitting position and let his voice ring down the hall as he closed the space between both of us. “Listen, Dr. Watson!” He called. He rested his hand on my shoulder, and pulled me around so I was facing him. 

    “Listen, John. What I had said before -what I said about not having friends-I meant it.  I don’t have friends; I’ve just got one.”

    I blinked, looking at his face for a moment, looking for any of it indicating that he could be telling the truth but then he continued talking.

        “But that doesn’t matter- I mean, it does matter, I guess it does to you, just not right now.” He paused, seeing the displeasure on my face but he didn’t take any time to verbally acknowledge it for his tone quickly lowered in seriousness,”I needed to tell you something important. That’s the soul reason for why I told you about the letter the other night. Think about it, if I were to conceal information from you, keep a secret, why would I have the sudden inclination to share that information with you unless it became relevant?”

    I thought about this and nodded. I supposed he was right. “Go on.” I prompted.

    He distractedly looked away at a nurse as she passed. He watched her carefully with his gaze, waiting until she was out of earshot to momentarily focusing his eyes back on to me before they darted away again. He opened his mouth to form the words a few times before he continued, “I received… another letter from my brother.”

    “When?”

    “Three days ago.”

    “What did it say?”

    When he was ready to answer, a nurse that I had come to know as Nurse Hooper approached us. She stood shyly off to the side and spoke in a soft voice as she always did. The things she said to Sherlock always seemed a bit unsure, as if they where a suggestion, not a requirement,“I’m sorry if i’m interrupting something but, Mr. Holmes, you’re scheduled to go to the craft center now. “

    Sherlock sighed, exasperated in the face of this -certainly to his opinion- ludicrous condition. Craft center: who could have imagined Sherlock participating within the limits or order of a project like attending such a mundane activity. However, he did not stay in the boundaries of such craft center, for Nurse Hooper added, “Mrs.Wilson also wanted me to remind you that spray painting the walls, creating a skull of clay or any other contumacious behavior is- well, Mr.Holmes- I guess you already know what it is. Contumacious.“

    Upon Ms. Hooper adding her polite suggestion, Sherlock’s eyes nearly rolled out of his head. “Of course, Molly. Don’t be so rudimentary.” He retuned. Sherlock turned his eyes towards me briefly and handed me a folded slip of paper that I had not noticed him holding before that moment. I opened it and I could see a neat print the title ‘Little Brother’. It was the newest letter from Mycroft Holmes.

 

* * *

 

     The letter was dated from the 28th day of April and read as follows:

                                                        _Little Brother,_

_It has come to my attention that your stay at St. Bartholomew’s psychiatric branch has changed it’s course since last time we where in contact late last September. Regrettably, I have been informed that your current state is not in the workings of improving in the direction of which is favorable, thus it is only logical to reposition you in a facility fitted for the severities of your condition. I should have known your presence in such hospital isn’t auspicious. Although I am sorry for the abrupt change and vague manner of this note, I will not except any argument against your extraction from your current location nor will I change my position on the subject. I will send for you on this coming Friday, the 2nd of May. As for your caretakers, I will send a letter to Psychiatric Director at St. Bartholomew’s to inform them of the change on Friday, but no other information will be provided that is not necessary previous or subsequent to your departure._

_MH_

        I was numb.

 

* * *

 

       I would like to say the following day, Thursday the 1st of May, came and went like most other Thursdays in any other month of the year, but of course, that would be a blatant and an altogether pathetic try at deception. That Thursday I was distracted, caught up in thoughts swirling around Sherlock’s unavoidable withdraw. Sherlock’s presence was a sunset. As though you knew the day was over but still, with a ridiculous hope, you held tightly to the day until the last amber glow of light slipped beyond the horizon.

    I did my best to preserve the last rays of light when I tried to discuss the issue with the Director of Psychiatry as he passed by me in the hallway. I asked him if he received a letter from Mycroft Holmes, to which he nodded his head, keeping his pace. I replied, trying my best not to put any emotion into the argument while I followed just behind him in the corridor, “Doctor Sholto, I think that the only thing that removing Sherlock Holmes from this facility will do is worsen his condition. It will likely agitate this paranoia and lack of trust, putting him in uncomfortable social positions and isolate him even more then he already is, sir. I wouldn’t doubt this to lead to other- more drastic- symptoms.”

    “You know the rules, Watson. If a family member requests a change of facilities, we have to comply.” He said.

    “But for patients like Sherlock?” I asked.

    “What about patients like Sherlock? As in a regular, unstable, patient like about any other patient we receive?” Sholto returned. I stopped in my tracks, offended on Sherlock’s behalf that Dr. Sholto would consider him a ‘regular patient’. He wasn’t an ordinary patient, not to me at least… But I had the common sense to know that if I said this aloud, any arguments I would attempt to make would be rendered invalid. The director walked a few paces ahead of me until he turned a looked at me, backtracking so we weren’t more then five feet apart from each other. His voice was quieter now as he spoke, “Look, John. Even if it where up to me, I would choose for Sherlock Holmes to go to his new location. Sometimes the families aren’t making good decisions for the benefit of the patient…. But this is a time where maybe more intense care is appropriate. Care that we won’t be able to give.”

    My throat filled itself up with an angry million words I would have argued in defense to Sherlock staying, but I abstained from voicing all of them for I knew this was a battle I could not win because he was probably right. From this I felt a great loss and I muttered an,”Okay.Yessir. I understand.” for those where the only four words I had in my mouth to surrender by.

 

* * *

 

     Although I knew that Sherlock was leaving the next day, and despite my thoughts being consumed by our separation of friendship, I was going to wait to say goodbye until the next morning. I did not have the strength of spirit to defer to Sholto’s choice and part with my friend in the same day.

    The 2nd of May approached like an oncoming storm. Faster then predicted and prematurely dreaded.

 

* * *

 

     Almost immediately after I arrived at the ward that morning, I went to see Sherlock in his room. I pushed the metal door open with more force then need be and I realized how anxious I must have seemed when the door slammed up against the wall. I did not care for my dismay swiftly took all of my feeling and made my stomach drop once again.

    Sherlock was not in his room, nor where any of his belongings. I couldn’t have missed then, I told myself, I just couldn’t have. Even if I had the knowledge to figure out that it wouldn’t have been unlikely for Mycroft to have beaten me to the ward, I couldn’t have convinced myself that this was the truth.

    Fortunately, I didn’t have to convince myself of this. Nurse Hooper soon laid a hand upon my shoulder and said softly to me, “Doctor Watson, Mr.Holmes sent me to find you. He’s just outside and said that he wanted to talk before he left…”

    I soon stood outside with my eyes squinting in the unusually bright London day and said my goodbyes to the friend I had made while his brother stood by.  It was very strange, I felt, to see Sherlock in actual clothes and not just the dull, ghostly shirt and plants that the psych ward issued to all of their patients. His clothes, not only very normal but quite classy: glossy, black shoes; jet-black dress pants; a shadowy purple silk shirt; and a darkened trench coat that stretched down the length of his body and turned up at the collar. But most memorable of all of the things he wore was the navy blue scarf that he had neatly tied around his neck. It made me smile.

    “Thank you.” He said, looking up from the ground .

    “For what?” I asked.

    “For… you,” He replied. “You put time into something that most people would neglect to even think about because of my condition.”

    I already knew the answer to the question before I asked, but I desperately waned to hear him say it,”What do you mean?”

    “Oh God. You’re really going to make me say it?” He sighed.

    “It’s not that bad.” I snorted.

    He laughed, a short and humorless breath of air, “It really is that bad…” Pause,”You showed me kindness, even when I deserved none.”

    Sherlock stuck his hand out for me to shake, and I took it firmly. “Thank you.” He added.

    “Time is of the essence, Little Brother.” Mycroft Holmes added with a joyless smile,”As long as you are done satisfying  your sentimentalities, we should be on our way.” And as if he knew there was nothing else Sherlock or I could say, he opened the door of the slick black car and ushered Sherlock inside.

 

* * *

 

      Sherlock was gone and I found myself utterly and distressingly alone.

 

* * *

 

     The only time I heard from Sherlock was when he stent me letters though the mail. The first letter- acquired only the next Monday- went as followed:

    _Dr. John Watson,_

_Everyone here is exceptionally troubled. Half of the staff seems to always be in a frenzy of timelessness, whereas the other half is particularly unconcerned. The patients are never in a better off condition then what everyone seems to think I am in. And the building itself feels older- even though it’s obvious that St. Bart’s was founded in 1123 and Bethlem was founded in 1337- the air feels heavier and floors more broken. What’s it to matter in perspective, John? I suppose nothing._

_Everyone here is an idiot,_

_Sherlock Homes_

            Sherlocks’ letters always made me feel something -and I thought that was extraordinary because for a man who didn’t feel, he made me feel a lot. Another thing I thought was funny-or more peculiar- was the pattern that Sherlock had in option for the letters he sent.They always arrived on the days I used to evaluate his heath; Monday, Wednesday, or a Friday. But never did I receive more then one letter a week. For the most part, they where regularly sent for the first four months after he left. These letters where just about things that Sherlock would usually talk about such as bees, the deductions he made about people that stayed, worked, and visited, or how brainless everyone was. But as time went on, they became more sporadically received and vague. Soon enough, I hardly received one letter a month and involuntarily, I started to miss his spidery handwriting and audacious vocabulary… But most of all I missed him.

   

* * *

 

    One day in February, after far too long of not hearing from Sherlock, wondering about Sherlock, and worrying about Sherlock, I decided I was to pay him a visit at Bethlem. So I took the day away from surgery to transit an hour from St. Bart’s to Bethlem Royal Hospital in order to visit the friend I still hoped to have.

    When I approached the front desk, the woman sitting there didn’t ask for my name per usual of visitors at St. Bart’s. The woman siting at the desk looked up at me and grabbed for the grey phone that sat at her desk and said something inaudible to the person on the other side of the line. “Wait here.” Demanded the woman who was sitting at the desk. So I did.

    Under a minuet later, a woman came into the room and without hardly glancing up from her mobile that she clapped in her hands she asked me, “What took you so long,  Dr.Watson? Mycroft has expected you to visit Sherlock for the past three weeks now.”

    “Expected me?” I inquired, “I didn’t even know I was coming until last week. How could have he possibly expected me to visit Sherlock?”

    The woman looked over to me as she led me through the hall with a smile that said she knew something that I could only guess towards. “That’s when he thought you’d break.” She said, stopping abruptly a door. I couldn’t think of a response to what she just said, and I could tell she knew exactly that. “He’s just in there.” She remarked, starting back down the hallway, returning her eyes to the lit screen of her phone.

    I knocked on the door once, twice, three short times before I heard a muffled ‘come in’ grant me access to the room. I walked in only to see one men talking to another man, one man with his back to the door, laying on a bed, and the other man standing at the foot of the bed, leaning against the frame as he looked at a chart. For a split second, I thought maybe the woman had brought me to the wrong room, but then the man on the bed turned his head to face me and instantly sat up in surprise. It was Sherlock.

    Even though I saw Sherlock in front of me, and I wanted to say so much to him, nothing came to mind that I could say. Nothing I would say. My mind felt paralyzed with the words that we where not saying and the silence filled up my ears like it had only once before. We were both just looking at each other and it made me upset that Sherlock or I didn’t break the hush that fell between us.

    The gentleman at the foot of the bed followed Sherlock’s gaze towards me and, suddenly seeming to put two and two together, smiled in a crooked way. “You’re John? John Watson, right?”

    I took in a breath. “Yes.” I said, letting my gaze linger on Sherlock for a second longer,”That’s me.”

    Sherlock shaped out of the silence and introduced him to me,”This is Dr.Sebastian Moron.”

    Dr.Moron stepped forward to shake my hand. Now that I looked at him, I noticed things about him that I hadn’t before: His face and hands had a few noticeable scars, I could only imagine what from; He was strongly built. _Like a solider_ , I had thought to my self; And it was strange how out of place he seemed to me in this hospital.

    “It was a pleasure to finally get to meet you, Dr. Watson,” Sebastian added, letting go of my hand and checking his watch, “But I better be off.” With that, Dr. Sebastian left the two of us alone.

    “John, I…”Sherlock started, trailing off,“I’ve been preoccupied.”

    “Preoccupied?”I scoffed.

    “Yes, John. Preoccupied. That’s what I said,” Sherlock retorted, standing up and pacing, “There is someone in this facility of whom I originally though to just be another patient. Well he’s not. He’s actually interesting. Past case of criminal history and the only reason he’s not in prison right now, is because he’s been diagnosed with psychopathic tendencies, schizophrenia,and bipolar disorder.”

    “How is that interesting?There are lots of criminally insane people in facilities such as these all around. ” I asked Sherlock, folding my arms across my chest.

    “Hm? Oh! Because he’s all of those things,” He smiled,”And still a genius.”

    “How is he a genius if he’s a criminal?” I asked.

    Sherlock looked at me, a tilt to his head.”Don’t think all criminals are idiots, John. It makes you sound ignorant. They’re idiots if they get caught.”

    “Sherlock, he did get caught.” I pointed out.

    He stopped pacing and stepped closer to me, (-entirely invading personal space-) and let a wicked smile speed his lips. “There’s the genius part. He wanted to be caught.”

    “Sherlock, I still don’t understand.“ I said to him.

    “I’m not the only one noticing who rises above the rest here. We’ve talked. And he’s interested in me as well.”     “Might as well call it a date then.“ I remarked.

    “Do kindly shut up, John.” Sherlock shot back, starting to pace again. “His interest is different, though. It’s…. pertinacious. It’s… ostentatious. It’s….”

    “Obsessive?” I chimed in and he stopped pacing again. Looking directly in my eyes, he nodded once. _Yes._

 

* * *

 

      After that visit, I never really stopped thinking about all Sherlock had said, or Dr. Moron, or the fact that Mycroft had expected me to visit. More then anything, the visit was unnerving. Just the opposite of what I had gone there for.     I had thought that if I saw Sherlock happily getting better, maybe I’d be able to have some closer about his departure. But when I had talked to Dr. Sholto, I had been right- even if at the time I hadn’t believe a word of it my self. Sherlock’s condition was worsening. He did seem further away from everyone else. His paranoia was acting up.

    _And it was all my fault._  

 

* * *

 

     The letters started back up for another two months before they, too, started to fade like wilting flowers. Nothing about them was settling, either. Not even the most vague of spidery-written notes could calm my nerves.

        March, April, May, and June passed without notice of anything but a barley conscious -yet persistent- feeling of worry. I hated not knowing how my friend was getting on.

 

* * *

 

    In June, I did not receive a letter.    

 

* * *

 

     July was just the same: Letterless.

 

* * *

 

     On the 23rd of August, I did not have to get up at 5:30 to go to work for it was a Saturday. It was a day that I usually had off, unless, of course, I had to make rounds like most doctors must. I wasn’t making rounds that day and so I was leisurely hanging around in my overly modest flat, reading the prequel to the Tolkien novels and drinking tea.  I remember the weather being splendidly warm for London, although rain still teemed down over the city from shadowy whips of clouds.

    When I heard a knock at the door, I jumped, startled by the sudden noise that cut through my imagination like an arrow. I hadn’t expected anyone but the mail carrier to come to my flat, so when I opened the door the person who stood there was so much of a great astonishment, I almost didn’t recognize him.

    “Are you not going to invite me in?“ Asked Sherlock, standing in the rain.

   

* * *

 

     Sherlock ran his fingers through his soaking hair, slicking it back in a way that I’d never seen him demonstrate perviously with the normally voluminous, dark chestnut curls. In fact, he looked very different. He was wearing his black shoes and dress pants and scarlet colored shirt- much in the way he dressed the day he went to Bethlem, minus the long dark coat. He looked up as I held out a cup of tea towards him and he took it from my hands, nodding respectively. (It was a closest thing to a “‘Thank you” that Sherlock was capable of and all that I expected to receive from him.).

    “Well I certainly hope you didn’t break out of Bethlem.” I joked.

    Sherlock smirked, pausing a second before taking a sip from the tea he held just below his lips,”No. I was discharged from the Royal Hospital a few weeks ago. They tell me that I’m fit for civilian life just like that. I spent years in these places -nearly four years in the MHSS at St. Bart’s- and then I get transferred to Bethlem for four months and….” He shook his head in disbelief and took a sip from the tea, quickly looking down at the cup in repugnance as he swallowed. “Dear God!” He exclaimed,”What did you put in this? Rancid milk?”

    “Do you think Mycroft had anything to do with it?” I asked, ignoring his comment about my tea.

    He stood from the chair he had been sitting in and went over to the sink in the cramped kitchen, pouring the liquid down the drain.“It’s possible, but at the moment it doesn’t matter. I don’t care…. But really! What did you make that tea from? Disgusting…”

    “Yes, yes. I get it. It’s a disgrace to Great Britain and tea makers everywhere. What have you been doing for the past few weeks if you weren’t interrogating your brother for why you where release?” I asked, watching him from my uncomfortable wooden chair.

    Sherlock turned back around to look at me and rubbed his face with his hands for a second, something I saw people do when they where stressed out. (Something I didn’t expect to see Sherlock doing.) “I was doing what boring normal people do, I guess.”

    “And what do boring normal people do? “ I returned.

    Sherlock sighed. “I don’t know. Why would I know..? I mean, got a flat and a job.”

    “Really?” I asked with more surprise in my voice then I meant to put in.

    “The job is in the mailroom at Scotland Yard. I sort the mail.”

    “And the flat?”

    “It’s on Baker Street…. Would you care to see it?”

    I considered this for a moment and then nodded. “I suppose there isn’t a reason not to.“

 

* * *

 

    The flat was messier then I pictured. The table that sat between two floor to ceiling windows in the living room was covered in stray papers. So much so, that the face of the table wasn’t visible any longer and Sherlock’s laptop laid out atop of the multitude of overflowing stacks of parchment. The mantle place had an array of odd objects sitting on it. A bat in a glass case, a small brown figure of some sort, a skull and a Cludeo board knifed into the wood by the mirror. (Of all things, it left me wondering who he’d played the board game with.) Books piled in the book selfs and in the corners of the room. A musical stand sat by the light of the window, also holding a stack of papers, and in this case, all sheet music. Of what I could see from the living room, the kitchen was not used as a kitchen but as what appeared to me to be a chemistry lab. (“Don’t worry,” he said to me,”I have HAZMAT on speed dial.” _Oh yes_ , I though, _that certainly was reassuring. Thanks Sherlock._ ) The last few things I noticed where a spray paired smily face and bullet holes denting the wall’s surface just above the sofa in the living room and a violin that sat upon the couch. I motioned to both things questionably.

    “Oh that?” He asked, referring to the painted face,”I was bored. The landlady is adding it to my rent.”

    I looked around at the surroundings again. “Where did you keep all of your things while you were… away?” I wondered aloud.

    “Storage center in Wales. Compliments of my brother.” Sherlock said with a small nod.

    “What does he do, your brother?” I asked.

    “He would say that he occupies a minor position in the British government. But he *is* the British government when he's not too busy being the British Secret Service or the CIA on a free-lance basis.”

      I nodded, as though I understood what he meant and looked at the violin. “I didn’t know you played.” I remarked.     “I know. They only let me play on your off days…. It helps me think.“

    I smiled, thinking about the brilliant notes that could come from the instrument with his fingers running arose the strigs.“I wish I could have heard it.”

    “Maybe one day you will.” Sherlock replied with a smirk.

 

* * *

 

     In the first three months after Sherlock’s release, he visited me periodically. Sometimes we’d sit in Speedy’s, the little cafe that sat just below Sherlock’s flat and talk or take a walk in Hyde Park if it wasn’t raining. We usually talked about things going on at our jobs- Sherlock’s deductions of people from the letters they sent and who received them and I about interesting happenings at the ward- or other stray subjects that happened to come up during our conversations.

    I visited so often that Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock’s landlady, mistook Sherlock and I to be a couple on multiple occasions, no matter how many times I reminded her that I wasn’t gay.  Another time that Sherlock and I were misunderstood for a couple happened to be a time Sherlock and I went out for Italian food. The man who’d seated us, sat a small candle at the table we were at, claiming the candle ‘would make it more romantic’. “Oh-I’m not- were not..” I tried to tell him that we weren’t in fact, on a date, but the man had already walked away. This type of mistake happened a few times after these transactions where made. I thought it to be because they didn’t understand.I thought that I visited Sherlock because we where not in a romantic relationship.  The relationship that we conceived didn’t go by words defined in a dictionary. I visited Sherlock because he was my friend in a way that no one else could ever succeeded in being. But seeing as though this thing that we both were committed to -this connection that pulled me towards his being like no other- was unspeakable, the mutual fondness went forever unmentioned.  And I was okay with this fact because we both just _knew_.

 

* * *

 

     By February, the visits where occurring less and less often and much. like I remembered the letters once became, Sherlock’s presence was more uncertain and haphazard. Now, if I tried to ask him about certain subjects like his brother or his health, he became irrationally vicious in his words and intentions, whereas before, these where things that were part of our casual conversations. I had a terrible foreboding awareness that he was falling back into his old habits of madness. And there was no way for me to catch him.

 

* * *

 

    March was lacking in the closeness of Sherlock in almost every way possible. I felt like I had not only been cast aside, but also a sense of unaccustomed self disappointment that I had not done enough to keep his fragile sanity afloat. I also was disappointed in the predisposition that he would unconditionally desire my presence as much as I needed his. I had illogically convinced myself of the untruthful meaning of sentiment that Sherlock was capable. I had overestimated his position and, by consequence, let myself down, stupidly confusing my expectations and his reality. _He’s a sociopath_ , I remembered for the first time in far too long.

 

* * *

 

     In April, I received a text from a blocked number during the middle of the work day.

        _17 April 14:26 -BLOCKED sent:_

            _{Sherlock went-as they say- off the deep end. ~Mycroft Holmes]_

    A few minuets later, another text came through.

        _17 April 14:32 -BLOCKED sent:_

            _{I thought it would peak your interest to obtain the knowledge he was readmitted to Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckingham. -MH]_    

I blinked, taking this information in and then sent back a reply.

        **17 April 14:34 -John Watson sent:**

**[Will I be able to see him? Or is he in some sort of confinement?}**

        _17 April 14:35 -BLOCKED sent:_

_{Solitary contentment until Monday. Tuesday, he is expected to be put back into his    usual room. You will be able to visit him on Wednesday. ~MH]_

        **17 April 14:35 -John Watson sent:**

**[I will be there.}**

 

* * *

 

      After I arrived at Bethlem and  entered into the patients section, I walked down the corridor towards Sherlock’s room. I was almost outside the closed door when I head the noise: Two cracks that split the air and snatched the breath from my lungs. I grabed at the handle of the door, trying to push it down frantically, but it was locked from the inside. Breaking it down, that’s what I did, only succeeding on the second try.

    I moved into the room and my eyes did not believe what they see. _Everything is a blur_. A man was laying on his back near the center of the room with a haunting smile petrified on his lifeless face and Sherlock was on the floor, back slumped to the wall and hands pressed to his stomach. _My world is nothing now._ I could see the crimson soaking into his shirt as he continued to compress the white fabric to himself, but he was not looking towards his wound anymore, but to me with panic in his eyes. _He has never seemed to small_. I rush to his side, muttering words that I don’t even hear as I, too, tried to stop the blood from rushing from his body. _It’s (never) going to be okay._

      “John…” He sputtered, his bloodied hands moving from his wound and with debilitating strength tugging at the front of my oatmeal jumper but I was still pressing the wound. His blood was everywhere and it seemed as though nothing could stop it from flowing from him. His weak grasp made it overwhelmingly clear to me that he knew it was over. My words could not heal him.

    His voice was almost impossible to hear, “John I…” His eyes said everything that both of us where never to say as I starred into them. Every fraction of a second killed me that much more.

    And then his eyes turned hollow and his body still and it really was over.

    The pain and the sorrow flooded me as the tears burned my cheeks. “I know.” I said over and over again as I hugged him to me, rocking back and forth with my sobs,”I know. I know. I know. I know. I know…” I spoke to him until my voice no longer formed words and my surroundings seemed distant, like a space shuttle… A space shuttle that was falling back to the Earth, burning up in the atmosphere, tearing apart even before it’s journey could touch the edges of space. That’s what I was: Burning, tearing, crashing until I was just the broken pieces of myself.

    I was, from that moment on, forever broken.

 

* * *

 

         I received another text message from Mycroft later, after I had gone home. Whiskey bottle in hand and cheeks stained, I glared at the blaring light of my mobile.

            _April 22 23:57-BLOCKED sent:_

              _{A doctor at    Bethlem, Dr.Sebastain Moron, was taken in custody for aiding James Moriarty in the homicide. Moron let Moriarty out of his cell and provided the weapon. They had been planing this from the beginning, claims Moron. Moron is to be taken from federal custody and transferred to a... Secure place out of jurisdiction of the British Government and... I don't doubt you perceive what will be done to Mr.Moron. Take care John.~MH]_

    A horrible rage burned inside me.I took my mobile and threw it against the wall on the other side of my flat with a great force. It's pieces fell to the ground and I shuddered, sobbing into my stained oatmeal jumper.

 

* * *

 

     I spoke at the funeral. I told them how the time I spent with Sherlock went by too fast. I told them that there where days that I just wanted to last forever and, of course -now that I looked back- I wish I wouldn’t have been so selfish with my time and care for him as a doctor and a friend.I said that I wished I could have done more with him -seen more because his potential was limitless. I confessed that I wish I would have been more tolerant with him at times, because I knew it was just his way of testing me. I told them that I wished I would have cared more for him and looked after him better.

    I didn’t mention that I wish I would have been more to him than I was but that I wasn’t.

    I didn’t point out that wishing doesn’t you very far, (most certainly not here and definitely not now,) or miracles don’t exist., or coincidences don’t happen because the universe could never be so lazy.

        I omitted the fact that we could have done so much together, because -even if no one else knew- I knew he was getting better. I knew his condition was improving. I left out how it killed me inside every day to know this because now no one else will see his brilliance. Not like I did. Not ever. 

 


End file.
